I knew for sure that day was my last day. I was going to die that day. While I was like counting my minutes and my seconds, I wanted the world to know what is happening to us

that the whole truth will eventually come out of what really happened in this place.

On the eve of April 1994, Rwanda was by far the most densely

populated country in sub-Saharan Africa. 100 days later, that was no longer true. In that short time period, as many as 800,000 people,

10% of Rwanda's population had been killed, and over 2 million had been displaced.

Tens of thousands died before most of the world even knew what was going on.

And even after the genocide became clear, many powerful countries sat on the sidelines.

The scar from the genocide is still healing,

and its legacy continues to have major implications

for Rwanda itself. And for the question of whether the

international community is capable of stopping mass atrocities before it's

too late. I'm Gabriel Sierra and this is why it matters. Today, the story of

the Rwandan genocide 30 years later.

During the Rwandan genocide, which was April 6th of 1994 through somewhere within the month of July, there was on the average 8,000 mostly tutsis slaughtered a day, every single day.

This is David Sheffer.

He's a senior fellow focusing on international law and criminal justice here at the council.

At the time of the Rwandan genocide, David served as senior advisor for Madeline Albright, then U.S. Ambassador

to the United Nations. In 1997, he became the first ever U.S. Ambassador at large for war crimes issues. And in this role he

negotiated the creation of the Rwanda War Crime Tribunal.

There were some Hutus in the death count. There had been intermarriage for decades in Rwanda, so you had many couples, one being

Tutsi, one being Hutu, but that marriage proved to be deadly for both of them because they were

associated with each other.

...